Awakening
by Synaid
Summary: Set about ten years after the end of the Tenchi Universe series, Yugi is finnally awakened only to find Tenchi married and Sasami struggling with becoming Tsunami. What will the Tenchi gang do when Nagi shows up again?
1. Default Chapter

Awakening

**_Awakening_**

By Synaid

**Chapter 1**

The girl almost flew up the long stone steps to the Masaki Shrine. There was a regality in her movements that shined through her youthful enthusiasm. Though she took the steps two at a time, there was an elegance to her footfalls. She was an amalgamation of girlish cuteness and womanly beauty. She was a teenager. Her long aquamarine hair whipped about her face, almost pulling itself out of the long single pony tail she had spent the last hour on. Two bangs reached to her chin, covering both her temples and framed her face in an impossibly cute way.

The girl suddenly jerked to a stop and whirled around to face the way she'd come. "Washu! Hurry up! We're going to be late!"

"Considering I'm the only being in the universe who knows the codes, I don't think there's much chance of it opening before I get there." A diminutive red head came into view.

"But Washu, she's waiting for us!"

"We don't know that. It's only been six years since we put her in there. She might not believe she's ready yet."

"She's got to, she's just got to!" The teenage girl shook her head to hide the tears that were threatening to fall.

Washu reached the young woman and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Listen to me. While both of you have matured a great deal in the last few years, there's still a decade's worth to go. And that's just physical maturity. Some people can live hundreds of years and not reach mental maturity."

"A few examples come to mind." The girl grinned, her entire face lighting up as the images of Ryoko, Mihoshi, Trieka and the others popped up. She was snapped from her musings by Washu who had continued up the steps.

"Come on, we don't want to be late, do we?"

At the top of the steps sat the Masaki Shrine. It was a small, quiet shrine that got only a few visitors a year, due in part to its location near the top of a mountain. It was one of the few places relatively untouched by the havoc the Masaki household seemed to be the center of. The reason for the shrine's charmed existence, not counting the gods who must watch over it constantly, was waiting for Washu and the teenager when they reached the top.

"Lord Katsuhito," Washu inclined her head to the aging priest, though he had left only moments before the two girls.

"Washu," Grandfather returned the nod and turned towards a small outcropping of rocks to the right of the shrine. The outcropping had been rumored to have a goblin entombed in it's depths for the last seven hundred years. What only a handful of people knew was that the "goblin" was none other than Washu, the greatest scientific genius in the universe, and she have been free for the last eight years. However, what was currently enshrined in the temple had the potential to be just as dangerous.

"It's almost time." Tenchi spoke up. he was dressed in a simple outfit, similar to the one he had worn to a certain carnival almost a decade ago.

"Where ya guys been?" Ryoko, once the greatest, most powerful space pirate in the universe, had her arm draped over Tenchi's shoulder. She was dressed in a flashy formfitting outfit, her hair done up in the spikes she had stopped wearing years ago. "We almost started the party without you."

"Cut it out, Ryoko." Tenchi gave her a look.

"Whatever you say... lover." Ryoko gave him a quick peck on the cheek before teleporting away from her blushing husband with a cackle that echoed the mischievousness the space pirate once had.

"It's too bad Aunty Ayeka and Kiyone and Mihoshi couldn't come," a blue-haired girl piped up. She appeared to be about eight years old, but in reality was only five. "And Ryo-Ohki, I miss her."

"They all wish they could have made it, Mayuka." Tenchi's father, Noboyuki, consoled the 'daughter of darkness'. "But they're helping Nagi and Ken-Ohki with that rebellion on the outer rim. I'm sure they'd be here if they could."

"I know..." Mayuka kicked a pebble away from her.

"Well, boys and girls." Washu drew everyone's attention to her as she finished typing in the final pass code to her come-and-go laptop. "It's time for the guest of honor to put in her appearance."

From an opening the size and shape of a doorway in the outcropping came the bright flash of light that always came before Washu's inventions. Slowly a figure formed at the center of it. Just before the light faded, the figure stepped forward and out into the open. It was obviously a female form. She brushed the straight blonde hair out of her blue-green eyes and looked over each member of the party in turn, a flicker of recognition coming with each face. She looked to be roughly sixteen years old, and her blonde hair's roots were beginning to darken. Finally her eyes settled on the only other person remotely close to her in age, the girl with aquamarine hair and a hopeful smile.

"S- Sasami?"

"Yugi?"

In an instant the distance between the two was gone and they were in each others arms, their eyes over flowing with tears.

The two most powerful girls in the universe were together again, and somewhere in the universe, something began to stir.


	2. Chapter 02

Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

After Yugi had finished hugging Sasami, there had been a group hug. Everyone had seemed to try and talk at once, all of them smiling and laughing. Yugi, perhaps the greatest evil ever to face the Masaki family, smiled. She'd just been accepted into it. There was a flurry of questions and answers as Yugi caught up on the way down to the house. Once there, a "welcome back" party was held. It struck Yugi as funny, since the only times she'd been here was when she was trying to destroy the place. It was Tenchi who pointed out that she'd been there just as many times and had played with Sasami or at the end before she took her long sleep. Those were fond memories, memories she was going over again and again at the end of the party, adding it to the list.

"So, Yugi, what are your plans?" Grandfather took a sip of the saki Ryoko had brought from Tokyo.

The welcome back party was winding down. Ryoko was drunk and had fallen asleep with Mayuka in her arms. Noboyuki, Tench's father, had helped get the sleeping pair into their shared room before turning in himself. There were plans for a new house due in the morning and he had wanted to go in early to finish up. Tenchi, Grandfather, Sasami and Yugi sat around the long table that dinner had been served on. Each sipped their respective drinks and seemed lost in thought.

"I don't know, but being in Washu's chamber wasn't helping me develop."

"What do you mean?" Tenchi inquired. He'd been quiet after the initial excitement.

"I was aging but nothing else." Yugi looked at her hands, flexing her fingers absently. "Can- can I ask you something?"

"Sure, of course you can."

"You married Ryoko."

"As in 'not Ayeka'?" There was a moment of silence as Tenchi thoughtfully sipped his drink. "As in 'not Sakuya'."

"Oh, I didn't mean it that-" Her words died in her throat as Tenchi caught and held her eyes.

"There would never be a time that Sakuya, _you_, would be old enough or me young enough to ever have that kind of relationship together. And Ayeka... Ayeka lost her memories. I wasn't on Jurai when it happened, and the royal family won't talk to me about it. Even Azaka and Kamidake won't talk to me. Wash tried to reconstruct her memories, but... that was years ago."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know." Yugi looked to Sasami but the young princess wore a blank expression, an impassive mask that Yugi shuddered away from. Strangely, to Yugi anyway, Grandfather wore a similar one.

"She's come back to herself." Sasami spoke up. "For the most part anyway. She knows who all of us are, but she doesn't feel anything for us. She looks at us like we're strangers who're claiming to be her friends."

"It might have fallen this way anyway." Grandfather intoned. "She was always different after Ryoko saved Tenchi from Haruna's universe."

"Haruna?"

"I'll tell you some other time." Sasami whispered. Both Tenchi and Grandfather seemed lost in memory.

Tenchi shook himself out of it first, "Do you guys here that?"

"Hmm...." Grandfather frowned. "Sounds like an incoming ship. Ryo-Ohki if I'm not mistaken." He set his drink on the table and turned to Tenchi. "Better go get Washu."

"Right." Tenchi stood, jogging over to the broom closet.

"What's wrong?" Yugi suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on her. Memories of the Jurai tomb flashing in her minds eye.

"It's Ryo-Ohki. She's coming in much too fast for a casual visit."

Washu's head came into view from around the open door. "I've been monitoring Ryo-Ohki since she entered the system. She hasn't slowed down yet. Ken-Ohki is following close behind."

"Washu," Tenchi absently felt for his sword, "can you tell how long till they get in?"

"Oh, I'd say right about-" there was a loud explosion outside. "Now."

The front door flew open, revealing the rather haggard looking form of Kiyone. "It's Nagi, she's been shot."


	3. Chapter 03

Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

It was difficult for Yugi to follow what happened next. Two furry humanoids came in. One was the color of milk chocolate and obviously female, the other was like newly fallen snow, the broad shoulders and square jaw identifying it as male. Between the two of them was an antigrav stretcher. For an instant Yugi mistook the person on it for Ryoko.

"Washu?" the milk chocolate colored one had a high pitched, catlike voice.

"Ryo-Ohki?" Yugi couldn't believe her eyes, but it was the little cabbit she'd known years ago.

"This way, quickly." Washu disappeared into her lab, followed by the two cabbits. Grandfather helped the beat up Galaxy Police officer over to the couch. Tenchi bolted up the stairs and into Ryoko's room. For a moment Sasami and Yugi watched it all in a detached sort of way. It was like they were watching it on TV, like it was happening to someone else. Ryoko, however, snapped them out of it.

"Kiyone!" Ryoko roared, appearing in front of green haired woman. "What the hell did you let happen to Nagi?"

"Calm down, Ryoko! Washu's looking at her already." Tenchi stood at the top of the stairs, running down it awkwardly.

Ryoko shot her hand out and lifted Kiyone off the couch and off the floor. "Damnit Kiyone, you will tell me now!"

"She's been shot." Everyone turned to Washu at the sound of her voice.

"Will she be OK, Ms. Washu?" Tenchi made it to the bottom of the stairs, swaying a bit on his feet. The saki was starting to catch up with him.

"Her species is remarkably resilient and incredibly fast healers. She _might_ have healed her self in time, but it was still a near thing." As Washu finished, two furry cat-rabbits slipped between her legs before she shut the door behind her.

"Washu, what happened to her?"

"She was shot." It came from Kiyone who was still hanging from the front of her shirt. Ryoko immediately remember her and dropped her back to the couch. "We were fighting the rebels on Ceti Alpha 5. The governor went nuts and ordered the slaughter of all the civilians. When- when the soldiers started separating the parents from the children to- to watch their parents die first, we..." Kiyone trailed off and buried her face in her hands. Even across the room, Yugi could hear Kiyone's muffled sobs. Kiyone felt Tenchi's hand on her shoulder and looked up into his brown eyes. "I'm ok, thanks." She took a faltering breath and continued. "We were about to stop it when this _person_ seemed to sweep through the soldiers ranks. In an instant it was over. Somehow he'd decapitated or mortally wounded all the soldiers. He just stood there, blood dripping from his sword. I- I don't know who struck first, but suddenly he and Nagi were fighting. She had him beat, was about to run him through, I think, then he just vanished."

"Vanished?" Washu had moved to Ryoko's side, opposite Tenchi. "Vanished like Ryoko does when she teleports?"

"No, he didn't flicker like she does. Light seemed to move up him in lines and then he was standing beside Nagi with a gun to her head. He said something like 'Dodge this.' and fired."

"And then what happened?"

"I- I don't..."

"Try and remember."

"It was the governor. He started talking like he was reading from a prophesy. Something about the moon." Kiyone closed her eyes. A tear fell, tumbling down her cheek and leaving a line in the ash and dried blood caked on her skin. Washu put a hand on the former detective's head, shaking her own.

"She's out cold. She must have stayed awake the entire trip here, to steer the ship."

"How long is it from Ceti Alpha 5 to Earth?" Father had come in at some point, and was helping stretch the prone form of Kiyone out on the couch.

"Three days." Washu fell into an over stuffed chair. Strangely, she looked pretty tired herself. Noboyuki stretched a blanket Sasami handed to him over Kiyone, his eyes shining.

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning." Ryoko's eyes glowed, her clenched fist crackling with energy. "Whoever did this to Nagi is going to pay."

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Ok, so what do you guys think? Please leave a review or I'm not going to finish it! Believe me, I'll do it!


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